07-02-2004 15:14									#1
	Trade Routes With Barb Cities Full PM-box? Change here!

In my last OCC game I found a size 8 city that was taken by barbs (Kyoto). The city was quite near my own (I used it as barb farm, too). I just had discovered trade, so I let my caravans got there. It seems that there's no difference between AI cities and barb cities concerning trade routes.

	07-02-2004 19:46									#2
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Really? I would assume the corruption in a barb city being maximal since barbs have no capital. That should reduce the trade significantly.

	08-02-2004 01:44									#3
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Like AI corruption and happiness

	08-02-2004 05:43									#4
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Ramses,

When trading from an SSC with good trade specials, most of the trade arrows used to compute route amounts and payoffs will come from the SSC, so even if a barb city's base trade is lower than that of a comparable AI city because of corruption, the total amount of trade arrows won't be that much different.

	09-02-2004 04:02									#5
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Good point. Always go for bonuses bonuses bonuses.

In our MP games, you have to jam caravans down their throats, since most players will not let you deliver then if they can stop it.

	09-02-2004 08:01									#6
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Can you get the Rd/RR bonus with a Barb city? You cannot form an "alliance" with the Barb civ, so you'd have to bribe every Barb unit right away to keep them from blocking the road...

	09-02-2004 15:06									#7
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But surely the rd/rr bonus is only dependent upon the route being free when the delivery is made. You need only send the caravan along with a decent defender so that it doesn't get squished, but also use dips along the road to ensure that no barb units get in your way. You'd have to only bother bribing the units that would block the optimum route at the time of delivery, and save the money on the rest. Mind you, the bonus for delivery would have to be impressive to make paying off all the barb units worthwhile.

	09-02-2004 18:13									#8
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The easiest way is if there's a mountain, two squares away from the barb city. Build the road through there and keep a good defensive unit or two on it. Every unit the city builds will impale itself on that location and the road will always be clear.

	09-02-2004 21:23									#9
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Those valleys and gorges around the mountain'll start filling up fast though!

	09-02-2004 21:28									#10
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Only with dead bodies.

	09-02-2004 22:12									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Elephant Can you get the Rd/RR bonus with a Barb city? You cannot form an "alliance" with the Barb civ, so you'd have to bribe every Barb unit right away to keep them from blocking the road...

To the question, yes, you can; and if there are no AI cities within the range to get the Rd/RR bonus, a Barb city is a good alternative. It is easier to get those 30+ trade routes to your SSC if you can use the Rd/RR bonus effect.

IIRC, Solo once tried to "give away" one of his cities to Barbs in an EL game so he could put this into operation. The bonus will be based on the SSC basetrade only; but, it is the ongoing routes that make this an interesting tack.

Monk

	09-02-2004 22:19									#12
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quote: Originally posted by duke o' york But surely the rd/rr bonus is only dependent upon the route being free when the delivery is made.

My understanding is the opposite. On any given turn, the trade bonus depends on the road being unblocked. To continue to get the bonus on a regular basis, you have to keep the road free of units that aren't allied with you.

The delivery payoff, which also can get road bonus, only depends on the road being free on the delivering turn, of course.

	09-02-2004 22:21									#13
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quote: Originally posted by rah The easiest way is if there's a mountain, two squares away from the barb city. Build the road through there and keep a good defensive unit or two on it. Every unit the city builds will impale itself on that location and the road will always be clear.

Ah not necessarily rah. Listen to my sad story now with a happy ending.

Once I lost my third city (Uppsala) to barbs (deity game 1x1x). I found the city in a hut, so it wasn't really that much damage as it could have been had I lost the third city in a regular game.

I lost the city partially because I played a gambit variant and didn't research horseback riding to get monarchy as soon as possible, cause I found masonry or pottery in a hut before I founded my first city. When I got monarchy, I decided not to take Uppsala back by force, but wanted to buy it back. To do that, I had to research writing and I was left without any offensive military technology for the period.

However, I had one archer which I found in a hut. There was a mountain next to Uppsala on the road to Trondheim, so I placed my archer there and fortified it hoping it will hold. And it did. The barb archers from Uppsala were committing suicide attacks from time to time, upgrading my archer to vet in the process.

The situation was progressing as planned until I received a message:

Sneak attack by barbarians!!!!!!!!

My vet archer fortified on mountain was gone and barb archers started their approach on Trondheim. It was a race with time from then. Moving all workers to trade squares, I managed to research writing on the turn barb archer positioned itself on a hill next to Trondheim. A diplo was produced and I bought the intruder.

A couple of turns later the same dip liberated Uppsala.

	09-02-2004 22:47									#14
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Good story. The Barb civ was acting like a normal AI civ. Could your archer have been bribed? But then again, on what basis would that be a "sneak attack" if they had been attacking the mountain for decades?

	09-02-2004 23:24									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Elephant Good story. The Barb civ was acting like a normal AI civ. Could your archer have been bribed?

No, it was attacked.

quote: Originally posted by Elephant But then again, on what basis would that be a "sneak attack" if they had been attacking the mountain for decades?

Yes, this is the question. I have never before or after been sneak attacked by barbarians. This was the only time something like this happened to me. Does anybody else have similar experiences?

	10-02-2004 00:00									#16
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Since the AI does it all the time, It doesn't surprise me that the barbs can surprise attack in rare circumstances. I can remember it happening once or twice (at the most) in the past.

Tough break on your story, but it was still against the odds. Your defense would have been around 13.5. Even an archer surprising isn't usually going to win that one very often. Barb cities don't build improvements so it's unlikely it was a vet.

I usually keep mulitple units, (usually units bribed from said city) and a fortress as soon as construction is discovered.

	10-02-2004 00:19									#17
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I explained everything in my story, but let me repeat.

I couldn't start bribing those units cause I didn't have writing at the time.

Multiple units wouldn't have made any difference cause I didn't have any good military technology and possessed only one archer in my entire army which I used.

The formulae for sneak attack you calculated based on tries warrior vs warrior may not have been representing the entire picture, since warriors have defence of 1 and attack of 1, so it's difficult to determine if the attacker's rating is increased or defender's rating decreased and by which amount exactly.

When barb archer sneak attacked my vet archer fortified on a mountain, the barb archer barely had a scratch while mine was annihilated. Previously, while the attack was not sneak attack, my archer didn't receive a single injury.

	10-02-2004 01:42									#18
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And my point doesn't change, it was still bad luck to lose that battle. Even with the barb 50% attack bonus and a 100% surprise bonus, the barb archer would have been attacking at 9 to your 13.5. Unlucky.

	10-02-2004 06:33									#19
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Damn it Rah! Your post count is devilish (9966)!
Keep posting at this pace and you'll be deity tomorrow, on Wednesday at the latest!

Well, let me help you with this. Let me aid you on your quest to reach the heavens.


What if your calculations and conclusions resulting from tests warrior vs warrior which seemed to point to a bonus in attack are actually erroneous because of the attack and defence factor of warriors (1) that could distort the analysis? What if it's not an increase in attack rating but a decrease of defence?

I suggest we test this with better units such as archers in various situations and see for ourselves. I would particularly like to see a test of sneak attacks of an archer on another archer fortified on a mountain. A vet one.

You see, 9 against 13.5 winning with only slight damage to the attacker is more than unlucky by my standards.

	10-02-2004 11:24									#20
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Before I had writing, the caravan was accompanied by a NONE-chariot - and I waited with the delivery until the barb city had completed another archer. I destroyed it, then I delivered the goods.
Later I bribed some archers - cheap NONE-units

	10-02-2004 15:09									#21
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You could build a road on a mountain to get the barbs to kill themselves against your defender, but you can;t build the road over the mountain all the time. To my understanding, the road or railroad bonus is calculated by the road covering all thos squares chosen by the AI: that is, the route that a GoTo unit from one city to the other would take. Just because you have a road stretching from one city to the other does not mean that you will get the bonus, because if you deviate from the GoTo route (say to build the road over some plains and grassland because it is quicker than through the swamps) you will not get the bonus.

	10-02-2004 18:24									#22
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ljcvetko, knock yourself out and test. I was satisfied with ours and experience has supported the results. Freak attack do happen. I had a barb archer destroy a city on a mountain that was defended by a foritifed vet phalanx before. (without surprise) It happens, but it is very unlikely.

And yes, DOY, am quite familiar with otimal path for road bonuses.

	11-02-2004 07:32									#23
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Guess once the Barbs got a city they became a "real civ" and could get the Suprise Attack bonus...

	11-02-2004 10:47									#24
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As I learned in this forum, early trade routes are important for an OCC game. Sooner or later the city will be taken by an AI civ, or an AI Civ will build cities on my continent/island. So the "bad" trade routes can be replaced by better ones. But that maybe happen thousands of years later.
So trade routes with a barb city are better than nothing

	11-02-2004 11:30									#25
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quote: Originally posted by ramses II. As I learned in this forum, early trade routes are important for an OCC game. Sooner or later the city will be taken by an AI civ, or an AI Civ will build cities on my continent/island. So the "bad" trade routes can be replaced by better ones. But that maybe happen thousands of years later. So trade routes with a barb city are better than nothing

"bad"?? I think you may have misunderstood.

With an optimal road and later RR connection to your SSC/OCC, your three routes to the Barb city will very likely hold until you lose Colossus. And that means no other delivery point has given a better trade route, such is the power and effectiveness of the road/RR effect.

So, definitely better than nothing.

Monk

	11-02-2004 14:14									#26
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"Bad Trade Routes"-explanation:
Barb cities will not build market places, banks or superhighways.

	11-02-2004 16:38									#27
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Do barbs pillage improvements (well, specifically roads) built by you around their own cities?

	11-02-2004 21:20									#28
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I hope you try that BEFORE you give them the city - they will not permit you to road or irrigate afterwards...

	11-02-2004 21:26									#29
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Why not? If you can get a decent defender and a couple of engineers - stack o' doom style. One load of engineers builds the one-turn fortress, the other engineers build the road or irrigation, and the unit just defends them from inevitable barb attack. You might need a spy in the mix to get around the ZOC, but I don't see why this couldn't be tested.

	12-02-2004 00:19									#30
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I've used the instant fortress to improve terrain around a barb or AI city before, for roads or because of overlapping city radius. If I feel the need to pillage it when done, it sometimes costs me the unit. No biggie.